Chile: More than a million and a half pilgrims celebrated the Virgin of Lo Vásquez

More than one and a half million faithful gathered at the Sanctuary of the Purísima Concepción de Lo Vásquez, in Chile, to celebrate the beginning of the jubilee year for the centenary of the Diocese of Valparaíso.

The celebrations for the centenary formally began this December 8, Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception, with the central Mass presided by Bishop Jorge Vega Velasco, Bishop of Valparaíso.

The bishop addressed the faithful with a homily in which he highlighted that “in this sanctuary, full of faith and hope, we remember that our pilgrimage to Lo Vásquez is a living sign of the evangelizing mission that we have received.”

“For this reason, as we celebrate the centenary of the creation of our diocese we recognize the path traveled by so many generations of faithful, priests, men and women religious, deacons and lay people who have sown the Gospel in the central valleys, the mountains and the coasts of this land, extending even to the Robinson Crusoe and Rapa Nui islands,” he noted.

In reference to the Gospel, he described Mary as “the temple that God prepared to receive his Son.”

“She was preserved from all sin, not because of her own merits, but because of the merits of Christ, her Son. “Mary is for us the perfect model of what the Church is called to be: a purified and holy community, which always seeks to please God and announce his Kingdom,” he said.

In that sense, and in reference to the first centenary of Nuestra Purísima de Lo Vásquez, he stated that the Virgin Mary “teaches us to look with tenderness, to embrace with love, to congregate in unity and to support each other in faith.”

“May this celebration encourage us to live this year with a spirit of renewal, generously welcoming Mary’s invitation: ‘Do what He tells you,’” he concluded, entrusting the Virgin with the path of the Diocese of Valparaíso, so that in this centenary can be “a living, evangelizing Church committed to the Kingdom of God.”

At the offertory, the faithful presented a plaque with the logo created for the centenary, a design that the bishops and priests also wore on their chasubles. A prayer created for this jubilee by the Contemplative Life monasteries was also delivered to the faithful.

The director of the “Felipe Diácono” Diaconal Training House, Leonardo Ruz, referred to the pilgrims who come to meet the Mother every year: “What happens in each praying and humble heart of the pilgrims is so sacred, so intimate and transcendent, that our sin does not even allow us to listen to what happens in that heart that “After a long pilgrimage, he arrives to deposit his flowers, candles and tears at the altar of eternity.”

“I have been moved by witnessing the caresses of God to so many pilgrims who feel peace for a few brief moments of their days,” he added, with special attention to “so many burdens that, along with the candles, they deposit on the Marian altar, so many crosses that “They have been planted next to the flowers at the feet of the Mother with open arms.”

The pilgrimage to Lo Vásquez, he described, “is faith, the simple faith of the poor, the vulnerable, the one who fights for life every day.”

The Sanctuary of the Virgin of Lo Vásquez is located 32 kilometers south of Valparaíso and 70 kilometers west of Santiago. There the Virgin has been venerated since 1849 under the invocation of the Immaculate Conception.

Every December 8, the sanctuary receives hundreds of thousands of pilgrims who arrive from all over the country. This year, on the occasion of the centenary of the Diocese of Valparaíso, the figure exceeded one and a half million.